| First Author | Mátyás F | Year | 2018 |
| Journal | Nat Neurosci | Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 11 | Pages | 1551-1562 |
| PubMed ID | 30349105 | Mgi Jnum | J:271525 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6279487 | Doi | 10.1038/s41593-018-0251-9 |
| Citation | Matyas F, et al. (2018) A highly collateralized thalamic cell type with arousal-predicting activity serves as a key hub for graded state transitions in the forebrain. Nat Neurosci 21(11):1551-1562 |
| abstractText | Sleep cycles consist of rapid alterations between arousal states, including transient perturbation of sleep rhythms, microarousals, and full-blown awake states. Here we demonstrate that the calretinin (CR)-containing neurons in the dorsal medial thalamus (DMT) constitute a key diencephalic node that mediates distinct levels of forebrain arousal. Cell-type-specific activation of DMT/CR(+) cells elicited active locomotion lasting for minutes, stereotyped microarousals, or transient disruption of sleep rhythms, depending on the parameters of the stimulation. State transitions could be induced in both slow-wave and rapid eye-movement sleep. The DMT/CR(+) cells displayed elevated activity before arousal, received selective subcortical inputs, and innervated several forebrain sites via highly branched axons. Together, these features enable DMT/CR(+) cells to summate subcortical arousal information and effectively transfer it as a rapid, synchronous signal to several forebrain regions to modulate the level of arousal. |
